Opinion

Educating our children

By Tony Laszlo

You don't have to be Japanese to get a basic education in Japan. But it sure helps. Compared to their Japanese counterparts, a disproportionately large number of non-Japanese children are not finding their way to the schoolhouse. And the problem has been getting worse these past few years, a matter that has been noted in the Diet a number of times this year, most recently in a March 12 session of the Upper House Research Commission on the Constitution.

On that occasion, Tsurunen Marutei of the Democratic Party pointed out that of the 30,000 Brazilian children estimated to be living in Japan, about 10,000 - one out of three - are not going to school. That's a fact that doesn't sit well with Japanese law. Article 26 of the Constitution says that all children have the right to receive an equal education, and that all legal guardians must see to it that the children in their custody get that education.

Or does it? Tsurunen says that the passage doesn't apply to foreigners. "The Constitution says that all kokumin have to send their kids to school," he said. "It is referring only to Japanese nationals and thus does not make the same demands on foreign parents." In order to rectify the problem the wording should change, the Parliamentarian said. "How about nanbito (all people)?" he asked.

I checked with two reputable dictionaries that are sitting on my desk. Both say the term means "a citizen," "a subject" or "a national." So it would seem that Article 26 is only concerned with Japanese people. Not necessarily. In fact, kokumin , as it appears in the Constitution, can include foreigners. Take Article 30, for example. Here, the Constitution says that kokumin must pay taxes. Foreigners are by no means exempt from that obligation. Thus, kokumin applies to them as well, not just to Japanese nationals. And kokumin are guaranteed equality under the law in Article 14. Some key court decisions have shown that this guarantee also applies - with some reservations - to foreigners living in Japan. Likewise, it may be argued that Article 26 extends the right to education to foreign children and the corresponding parental duties to foreigners who have custody of those children.

Still, Tsurunen has a point. Kokumin does sometimes include foreigners, but this is something that is known by few - constitutional scholars and legal experts, for the most part. But in the real world, the world in which education board members, local civil servants and foreign residents live, kokumin means what common sense and the dictionary says it means: a Japanese national, plain and simple.

It is in the real world that large numbers of non-Japanese children are now going through their formative years without proper schooling. Those children, like children anywhere, need good access to education. And they are entitled to it in Japan. That fact would be much better understood by all sides if the Constitution clearly stated that "all children" are required to be in school. Such a revision is not a simple matter, but it is one that deserves to be considered.

Shukan ST: May 9, 2003

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